The following references to, and descriptions of, prior proposals or products are not intended to be, and are not to be construed as, statements or admissions of common general knowledge in the art. In particular, the following prior art discussion does not relate to what is commonly or well known by the person skilled in the art, but assists in the understanding of the inventive step of the present invention of which the identification of pertinent prior art proposals is but one part.
Most metal plate working involves both cutting by means of a guillotine or by means of a profile cutter utilizing plasma arc, oxy-fuel, waterjet, or laser, and subsequent machining. Many plate working operations also require line marking for subsequent bending and welding operations.
At the present time, the above functions are performed by means of either separate and distinct machines whereby the metal plate being worked must be transported from one machine to another or specialized plate processing machines (such as the Farley Laserlab Fabricator, Atlas and Hercules machines) that can cut and machine plates on a common worktable in a single setup. Specialized plate processing machines offer much higher productivity as much of the labor expended in working metal plates is consumed in transporting and maneuvering the plate in the workshop. Where a plate is very large and heavy (for example, weighing many tons), the moving operation may occupy a considerable amount of time and involve expensive transporting and lifting equipment. Thus, it is not surprising that studies have shown that up to ninety percent of labor expended in preparing a metal plate component is not actually adding value to the plate. In addition, many of the machining machines presently in use have serious limitations on the size of plate that can be accepted for machining and even these machines are extremely expensive.
The specialized plate working machines, however, can be further optimized as currently machining multiple nearby features requires the machine and/or plate to be moved from each feature to the next, even if separated by only a very small distance. If the machine is equipped with a plate clamping device, which is generally required where the plate is subjected to large, plate-moving forces during machining, then this device must be deactivated and reactivated each time that the machine or plate is moved to a new position. This required movement increases processing time and may detract from accuracy.